Project Will Memorialize Violence Against Women

March 12, 1996|By Sandra Mathers of The Sentinel Staff

The Clothesline Project is coming to Orlando.

Never heard of it? You will, if the grass-roots project catches hold here, as it has elsewhere.

On April 27, as many as 100 women's shirts could be flapping in the breeze in a corner of Eola Park in downtown Orlando. Each individually decorated shirt, project organizers say, will represent an act of violence against a woman.

''We very much want to make a statement in the community that women have been and are being abused,'' explained Judith Barrett, director of Response, the area's only sexual assault resource center.

The Orlando organization is among more than a dozen women's groups sponsoring the awareness-raising event as a deterrent to violence. Other sponsors include Spouse Abuse Inc., League of Women Voters in Orange and Seminole counties, Orlando Area NOW and Metro Orlando Women's Political Caucus.

Often compared to the AIDS quilt as a powerful testament to the pain such violence produces in its victims, the Clothesline Project uses personal art on shirts to depict all forms of violence against women - from rape to incest and spouse abuse, Barrett said.

Shirt-decorating supplies are being furnished by the Women's Resource Center, another sponsor, and counselors will be available at each site, said event coordinator Jean Siegfried.

''The purpose of the workshops is to provide a safe environment for part of the healing process to take place,'' Siegfried said.

Started six years ago on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, the Clothesline Project has grown to include events in 41 states and five foreign countries.